The present disclosure relates to a tantalum capacitor and a method of manufacturing the same.
Tantalum (Ta) is a metal widely used in various fields, such as the aerospace and defense sectors, as well as in the electrical, electronic, mechanical, chemical and other fields, due to its desirable mechanical and physical properties, such as high melting point, excellent flexibility and corrosion-resistance, and the like.
Since tantalum may allow for the formation of a stable anodic oxide film, it has been widely used as an anode material in small capacitors. In accordance with the rapid development of information technology (IT), as well as the further development of the electronics and communications industries, the amount of tantalum used worldwide has increased by 10% on an annual basis.
A capacitor is generally referred to as an electric condenser in which electricity is temporarily stored. It is a component that may accumulate electricity through two flat plate electrodes which are insulated from each other by a dielectric layer interposed therebetween and that are in close proximity to each other so as to accumulate electric charges by attraction. In this way, it may be used to obtain capacitance by confining the electric charges and an electric field to a space enclosed by two conductors.
A tantalum capacitor using the tantalum material may have a structure using gaps generated when tantalum powder particles are sintered and solidified. It is completed by forming a layer of tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) on a surface thereof using an anodizing method, as well as forming a manganese dioxide (MnO2) layer and a polymer layer, which are electrolytes, on the tantalum oxide, using the tantalum oxide as a dielectric layer. Then, a carbon layer and a metal layer are formed on the manganese dioxide layer as well as the polymer layer to form a body, anode and cathode lead frames are formed, and a molded part on the body in order is formed to allow the tantalum capacitor to be mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB).
In order to connect a tantalum wire of the tantalum capacitor to an electrode of the board on which the tantalum capacitor is mounted, the tantalum wire needs to be connected to the anode lead frame. In this case, in order to bond the anode lead frame and the tantalum wire to each other, a riser is welded to the anode lead frame. However, as the tantalum capacitor is miniaturized, the defect rate from the welding process is increased and manufacturing costs are increased.